SEC hires first cybersecurity adviser

SEC hires first cybersecurity adviser

Share

IT security veteran Chris Hetner will become the first senior adviser for cybersecurity policy to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White, the agency announced.

In the new position, Hetner will coordinate the agency’s work on cybersecurity policy and “enhancing the SEC’s mechanisms for assessing broad-based market risk,” a press release said.

“Having dedicated my career to information security, I am honored to have the opportunity to advise Chairwoman White on cyber policy issues,” Hetner said in the release. “I look forward to working with staff across the agency to enhance our risk-based approach to cybersecurity policy.”

With 20 years in the field, Hetner led Ernst and Young’s Wealth and Asset Management Sector Cybersecurity practice for more than three years. Before then, he worked on global-based cybersecurity at GE Capital and Citigroup’s Institutional Client Group.

The new position will be a plus for investors in SEC-regulated markets like the New York Stock Exchange, BitSight Technologies Vice President for Business Development Jake Olcott told FedScoop.

“Investors are increasingly looking at cyber risks to their portfolio companies,” Olcott, a former House Homeland Committee staffer, said. “To have someone focused specifically on this issue at the SEC will be extremely helpful for investors and public companies alike. It is critical that the SEC improve the disclosure process from companies to investors.

Olcott added that five years after issuing its first cyber guidance, the agency and the companies it regulates “still struggle with what to ask for and what to provide” in terms of disclosure.

The hiring comes about a month after a Government Accountability Office audit highlighted a plethora of problems with the security behind SEC’s financial data, such as documentation management and its disaster recovery plan.

Contact the reporter on this story via email: Jeremy.Snow@FedScoop.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeremyM_Snow. Sign up for the Daily Scoop — all the federal IT news you need in your inbox every morning — here: fdscp.com/sign-me-on.